This invention relates to the formation of new copper or silver complexes containing a fluorinated diketonate and unsaturated hydrocarbons as ligands. More particularly, unsaturated hydrocarbons can be removed from feedstreams by reaction with Cu.sub.2 O or Ag.sub.2 O and beta-diketonates to form the copper or silver complexes.
It is known that certain silver(I) and copper(I) salts form complexes with olefins and acetylenes. For example, cuprous chloride is known to form complexes with both ethylene and acetylene. U.S. Pat. No. 3,401,112 teaches a method of separating a mixture of hydrocarbons having differing degrees of unsaturation using a copper(I) salt of the formula CuXA where XA is an anion, X is oxygen or fluorine and A is the remainder of the anion. Examples of fluorinated anions include fluoro substituted carboxylates, fluorosulphonate, perfluoroborate, hexafluorophosphate and hexafluoroantimonate. CuXA forms a cuprous complex with said unsaturated hydrocarbon. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 3,517,079 describes a process for separating vinyl aromatic hydrocarbons from alkyl aromatic hydrocarbons using a cuprous fuoroborate or cuprous fluorophosphate salt wherein a complex is formed. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,754,047 and 3,755,487 disclose a process for separating complexible ligands such as olefins, acetylenes, aromatics and CO from a feedstream using cuprous salts such as CuAlCl.sub.4, CuBF.sub.4, CuOOCCF.sub.3, CuPF.sub.6 and the like.